Arrival in MO

April 10 – 2014
The drive from Texas to Missouri was a feast for the eyes. The trees in the wooded areas are just beginning to grow their leaves so I could see colorful splashes of white dogwood blossoms and redbud throughout the forest. Flowers are poking their heads out to greet the warm weather and the rivers and creeks are swollen with the runoff of melting snow and rain.
Spring has come to Mid-America and so have I.

Rockport TX Area March - April 2014

March 25 – April 9 2014
I arrived in Rockport TX to brilliant streaks of lightning, loud claps of thunder, and pouring rain. I stepped into the RV office to check in and said to the woman behind the counter “I just thought I would announce my arrival”. Everyone in the office got a kick out of that. More bad weather to delay my trips to the birding areas of South Texas.
One bright spot of my stay in Rockport was a visit from my cousin Joe Leonard. He lives and works in Austin, but will be retiring at the end of the school year. He teaches music to grade school children. You couldn’t pay me enough to teach anything to grade school children. Bless his heart.
I took advantage of the few dry and partially sunny days to find a few birdies to pose for me.
Unfortunately some of them were posing on beaches full of oil that had washed down the coast from a tanker that collided with another ship in Galveston Bay a few days earlier.

Brown Pelican - Goose Island SP TX

Black and White Warbler - Goose Island SP TX

Black-throated Green Warbler - Goose Island SP TX

Hooded Warbler - Goose Island SP TX

Brown Pelican swallowing a fish - Goose Island SP TX

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - Goose Island SP TX

Whooping Cranes in a cow pasture near Goose Island SP TX

Brown Pelicans - Mustang Island SP TX

Laughing Gull - Mustang Island SP TX

Ruddy Turnstone - Mustang Island SP TX

Sanderling - Mustang Island SP TX

Willet - Mustang Island SP TX

Blue-winged Teal - Leonabelle Turnbull  Birding Center - Port Aransas TX

Green Heron - Leonabelle Turnbull  Birding Center - Port Aransas TX

Northern Shoveler - Leonabelle Turnbull  Birding Center - Port Aransas TX

Ruddy Duck Male - Leonabelle Turnbull  Birding Center - Port Aransas TX

Oil Cleanup Crews at Mustang Island SP TX

Oiled Shorebird - Mustang Island SP TX

American Alligator - Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center - Port Aransas TX

Nutria - Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center - Port Aransas TX

Rio Grande Valley TX

March 17 – 24 2014
Of the two weeks I spent in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in TX I think I only had four days without Wind, Rain, Clouds, Storms or all of the above. They have had a strange winter and it looks like it may be a strange spring. I checked out a couple of the same places I visited two years ago. I am about two to three weeks earlier this trip. When I was here before almost every day was sunny and very warm.
Here are some of the critters I managed to find in my limited time outdoors.

Common Pauraque - Estero LLano State Park TX
Can you find me?

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron - Estero LLano State Park TX

Green Kingfisher - Estero LLano State Park TX

Common Gallinule - Estero LLano State Park TX

Golden-fronted Woodpecker - Estero LLano State Park TX

Great Kiskadee - Estero LLano State Park TX

Inca Dove - Estero LLano State Park TX

Brown Thrasher - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX

Couch's Kingbird - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX

Eastern Screech-Owl - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX
Making a home in a ventilation tube at the visitor center

Great-tailed Grackle - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX

Green Jay - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX

Plain Chachalaca - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX

Wild Turkey Male - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX

Northern Cardinal - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX

Northern Cardinal - Laguna Atascosa NWR TX

Reddish Egret - South Padre Island TX

Least Sandpiper - South Padre Island TX

Willet - South Padre Island TX

Falcon State Park and Salineno Texas

March 4 – 10 2014
A little update for my birding friends. Falcon State Park TX no longer has their bird feeders out. The volunteers have been told they can only have one feeder per RV site. No one seems to be too happy about it. They were also told that any employee or volunteer that visited the Salineno bird feeders would no longer have a job. They were told it was unsafe. I got this from the Salineno volunteers. Also starting next year the Salineno feeding station will be run by Texas fish and game. Two of the volunteers will return to volunteer, but the other two will not.
Sounds like a bunch of poopy is going on.
I spent a day at Salineno and found the usual plethora of birds.

Altamira Oriole - Salineno TX

Audubon's Oriole - Salineno TX

Audubon's Orieole - Salineno TX

Great Kisskadee - Salineno TX

Green Jay - Salineno TX

Ladder-backed Woodpecker Female- Salineno TX

Ladder-backed Woodpecker Male - Salineno TX

Orange-crowned Warbler - Salineno TX

Orange-crowned Warbler - Salineno TX

White-tipped Dove - Salineno TX

Greater Roadrunner - Falcon State Park TX

Inca Dove - Falcon State Park TX

Northern Bobwhite - Falcon State Park TX

Pyrrhuloxia Female - Falcon State Park TX